


the haruspices sing on

by Rupzydaisy



Series: the haruspices sing on [5]
Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Canon Compliant - His Dark Materials, F/M, Future Fic, Happy Ending, across other worlds, canon divergent - book of dust, hdm holiday exchange gift 2019, lantern slides compliant, other oxfords, the bench - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22203985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rupzydaisy/pseuds/Rupzydaisy
Summary: In another world, where there are no mulefas, there is a tree. Not nearly as old and not nearly as tall, its willow branches stoop low, reaching down to brush the grass. Under its fringed embrace sits a bench, rather ordinary; scratched from years of use and scuffed from bags and boots. It quietly weathers the rainiest and icy days, and it is nothing more than it looks until Lyra brings Will to it.In the two Oxfords, the flow of Dust streaming through ebbs, then slows, and swirls around the branches of the willow tree at the far end of the Botanical Gardens. To the human eye there is no indication although angels flying through the invisible tears between worlds recognise the arc of dust; ever-bent, ever-falling to this single spot mirrored across the two separate gardens.It waits for them.
Relationships: Lyra Belacqua & Iorek Byrnison, Lyra Belacqua & Serafina Pekkala, Lyra Belacqua/Will Parry, Mary Malone & Will Parry
Series: the haruspices sing on [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609966
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	the haruspices sing on

**Author's Note:**

> alternative Christmas themed title would be 'hark, the herald angels sing'  
> this was a holiday exchange gift for s-irensongs/woolysocks

There is a tree in the mulefa world with its uppermost canopy brushing up against the open skies, bird wingtips, and the Dust-coated edges of the universes. The golden ebb and flow moves from this world to the next, and then onward further. 

In another world, where there are no mulefas, there is a tree. Not nearly as old and not nearly as tall, its willow branches stoop low, reaching down to brush the grass. Under its fringed embrace sits a bench, rather ordinary; scratched from years of use and scuffed from bags and boots. It quietly weathers the rainiest and icy days, and it is nothing more than it looks until Lyra brings Will to it. 

As Dust courses along the treetops in the mulefa’s world, the seed pods begin to fall in abundance. In Lyra's and Will's worlds, Dust falls onto humans and witches and panserbjørne alike. It reaches out to touch consciousness. It seeks and finds without judgement; in the only way Dust knows reality, through love. It swirls across worlds, crossing through all existences, pushing on to fill those with future promise. 

In the two Oxfords, the flow of Dust streaming through ebbs, then slows, and swirls around the branches of the willow tree at the far end of the Botanical Gardens. To the human eye there is no indication although angels flying through the invisible tears between worlds recognise the arc of dust; ever-bent, ever-falling to this single spot mirrored across the two separate gardens. 

It waits for them. 

xxx

At midday, on Midsummer's Day, Lyra takes her seat on the bench and says the words she has been waiting an entire year to say. 

"I love you, Will." 

They were always going to be her first words to him. She had decided that months and months ago. After that, she had been a little unsure, and so she had taken to writing little scraps in a notebook she kept in her pocket or in her bag, so that it was always at hand to make sure she wouldn't forget things. She saves all her thoughts for him and then makes her way through the pages, edges torn and crumpled from overuse, scribbles cutting through pages in those fleeting moments of happiness and anger, joy and regret. 

"Oh, and the school is actually more fun than I thought it would be. I mean the classes can still get boring, oh and there's one old teacher, Mrs Stevens, and she _really_ doesn't like it when I come into class after break times with a ripped skirt or mud on my shoes." 

Lyra snorts and leans back against the bench, slouching into a comfortable heap, "But I like the fun lessons, and the headteacher has lots of interesting friends who come to teach special classes at school assemblies."

When she sighs, it's a happy one. "Dame Hannah came to teach at one, about three months ago. She brought one of her big books, and we all got to read through some of the pages."

She remembers the feel of the old pages under her hands, turning them carefully so as not to shake the words off the dried paper, marvelling at the fine script, and then worries at her lip. Beside her, Pan shifts and settles to rest his head on her knee. 

"Will, it was about the alethiometer. The book normally has to stay in the library, but she requested special permission to sign it out, and I got to read about the symbols.”

She falls silent, unsure what else to say next, and watches Pan’s tail flick from side to side before reopening the little pocketbook. “Oh, I spent the Michaelmas and Easter breaks in London, as an assistant to one of Dame Hannah's friends who's working in the archives at the Arctic Institute."

Her fingers grip the side of the book, "Dr Corera is an Arctic researcher. She's been studying the bears, but a lot of her research was based on Iofur Raknison's ways, which wasn't true to the real panserbjørne."

She snorts loudly, making Pan jump, and he flicks his tail across her leg in return. "So when I told her that it wouldn't be a good idea to take a crate of gold and jewels, she needed me to explain why bears didn't care for things like that. After I suggested taking a rare metal instead, like Greek steel, she sort of came around to the idea."

Abandoning the pocketbook to her lap once more, Lyra’s eyes search across the small corner of the garden for movement, something to address in the absence of him beside her. There is the soft bending of flowers under the breeze, the ripple of grass, and the familiar swish of the willow branches, but nothing else and so she turns back to the empty spot on the bench, shifting side wards and pretending to make believe a shadow, a hint of an arm or neck, anything at all. 

"I asked her to take a message for me, to Iorek, and that I was going to go North someday, again, to see him, and Will, you'll never guess what-" She became breathless with excitement, "She invited me to come North with her the next time so travels!"

Her hands fly up, and she exhales sharply. "I'm working at the Institute this summer, and she'll be sending her research back, and I'm going to read all of it. I'm leaving tonight on the last airship to London, and then I'll get to wave her off. She's travelling up a big research ship that's going to be going all the way to the Pole. It's a lot different to travelling with Gyptians, I know that much."

"It's funny, we're so far away, miles and miles, from the North and it takes days to get there, but you're here, right here, and I can't see you or hear you."

Lyra smiles gently, the thought of seeing him warming her heart greatly, but then her smile slips, and falls. Beside her, Pan freezes, his tail still and paw outstretched to reach her, only she's lost in her own thoughts again. 

It takes her a while to break away from the idea, and instead of shoving it away from her as she had done for a whole year, she decides to say it. 

"But I know you're there, Will, I just know it." 

xxx

Worlds remember the girl who paid the highest price, who unknowingly carried out a great betrayal and saved whole universes while trying to make amends. 

Dust carries the message far and wide, immaterial but full of the faith that delivered it, and word spreads from mouth to mouth or with ink dipped and written with the feathers fallen from witches' daemon to be passed out to embassies across the world. It flies on icy winds high above the Arctic, and through jungles and barren wastelands too. 

The Gyptians sing a song to their children as their boats rock gently along the waterways in the West. Those who sing have been touched by the story of the missing children, and others had been so unfortunate to have lost their sons and daughters to the gobblers and the child-cutters. They sing a song of love; the bond between a child and their daemon. It tells them to hold their daemon close, and to listen to their own hearts. Where the lullaby carries across the waters to reach the ears of landloper's children, they fall asleep to the weaving melody and know that the most precious thing in the world sleeps alongside them, with scales and fur and feathers. 

In the far North, the panserbjørne roar a promise to the refreezing ice and the howling winds after their return to the homeland. Stepping out onto the snow, they vow; never be fooled once more, never let their traditions tarnish, never let their sky metal armour become dishonoured. They rebuild their palace under the guidance of their new king, their true king, and their deft claws work each piece of metal with the intention to pass their story down to all bear-kind. 

They add a new etching across the cave's entrance to the King's Hall, _the panserbjørne_ _welcomes truth speakers in the memory of Silvertongue._

xxx

Will holds his hand up in the air and sticks out his finger, until it's aligned with the invisible line he imagines runs through the bench. Half is his, in his Oxford with its buses and cars, and the other half is Lyra's, with its witches and bear-kings and Gyptian boats puttering down the canals he walks along on his way home from school. 

Above the invisible line across the bench he draws a circle with his finger tip, imagining a window to another world hovering in the air, imagining a knife with a more gentler blade; one that could split the fabric of the universe with a more delicate intention of bringing two hearts back together to make one whole. 

Here in his imagination, the air ripples like water. Light refracts in on itself to turn silvery before parting like a receding tide slipping away from the shore, silent and peaceful. It gives no resistance and splits like a curtain, or mist unfolding, and behind is Lyra's face, full of immeasurable joy like his own. 

It wouldn't be the most impossible thing in the universes, he tells himself, feeling the jagged edges of his heart. 

Kirjava curls around his legs, passing through and under the bench. Then she hops onto the arm and sit beside him patiently. Her black fur is speckled with pollen from the flower beds and he reaches back a hand to brush it off her ears. 

"Tell her, go on, I'll keep watch." 

He doesn’t need the encouragement, not for a moment he’d waited all year for, but it helps. With a final swipe over his daemon's soft fur, Will watches her leap down onto the grass and slowly walk towards the bridge to guard his privacy in the far corner of the garden. His heart flutters, and he turns back to the empty side of the bench, that he knows is empty only in his Oxford, and thinks, _Lyra, Lyra, where do I start?_

"My mum asks about you. She wishes she could have met you. I don't even have a photo to show her."

Will pauses, feeling foolish just for even saying it aloud, even though he had practised in his bedroom, on his walks home from school, even while he was supposed to be doing his homework. He had waited all year to fulfil his promise to her; he would always come to the bench on Midsummer's Day, no matter what. 

"We had the radio on in the kitchen, while I was doing the dishes. She likes to dry, so I have to wash up. Anyway, I heard a song..." He smiles to himself, feeling the warmth in his chest again with the tinkle of piano keys echoing in his thoughts. "It reminded me of you, and I turned it up so she could hear, and I told her, _this, Lyra is like this!_ " 

"So, there's that, I keep thinking of you, Lyra. I can't help it, and I don't think it'll ever change. I don't want it to, because I love you." 

xxx

Mary Malone gives the mulefa's gifted seeds to a gardener who worked at the Botanical Gardens after she makes it back home. She doesn’t pass by often but when she manages to, she pops her head in and checks on them. He is a simple man, retired from a life of suits and briefcases, and more than happy to replace it all with a pair of muddy gardening gloves and a trowel. 

Inside the greenhouse, the seeds turn to saplings, they thrive. 

“They’re four inches tall now, Mary.” He tells her, tapping his feet along to the jazz wafting out of the radio. 

He always leaves the radio on, no news, no talk shows, just music. By the time he reaches her, the song changes and he has to rejig his feet to match the new rhythm. “Doing alright, but I can’t compare it to anything, can I?”

She dips her head to take a look at the little shoots of green before tapping her nose and saying, “Trees. _Big_ trees.” 

“Fruit? Nut? Domestic? Exotic? I can’t tell at all.” The gardener asks, always unanswered, and then waves her off with a toothy smile as always before turning back to the small saplings. “Never you mind. A splash of water, and we’ll figure it out as we go along. A bit of tender, loving care is all anything needs, isn’t it?” 

The years pass by. 

They grow taller. 

His son plants them in the three corners of the Botanical Gardens in his honour and the one closest to Magdalen Bridge flourishes. 

xxx

Lyra travels North a few summers later, after she gets her permissions from the Master and from Dame Hannah. She leaves straight after Midsummer's Day with promises to be a responsible and mature young lady for the duration of her trip. It takes ages for the sun to set as the airship flies up to Edinburgh, and Dr Fiona Corera sleeps the whole way there while Lyra flips through the pages she carefully copied out of Dame Hannah's books on the alethiometer for studying purposes. 

"What do you think, Pan?" She asks drowsily before she turns of the bedside lamp in their Edinburgh hotel. 

"I think you'd better sleep now," says Pan, curled up at the top of her pillow. 

Lyra rolls over onto her stomach and blows a puff of air onto his head, flattening the downy fur around his ears. "Come on, do you think any of it will have changed?" 

It seemed to her that growing older meant that there was more room and more time to consider bigger questions, and often she found herself struggling to match them with answers, and after a moment she whispers into the dark, voice all fretful in another moment of doubt. 

"Do you think Iorek will recognise me?" 

"He's a bear, Lyra. If you can't lie to him, then _obviously_ it means he'll know the truth. He'll know you." Pan trails off, and she falls fast asleep to the soft patter of rain on the windows. 

A week later when she stands in front of the king of the bears, in all his majesty, she wonders why she was worried at all. 

"Lyra Silvertongue." 

He greets her with a hot puff of breath and dips his head so that she can embrace him. It's true, her arms are longer and she's taller, but all it means is that she can reach more of him. He looks older, sounds older, but no less kingly. The bears around him orientate themselves so that he is always walking ahead, always leading them, and she's in awe as she walks alongside him through the palace. 

While Dr Corera sits among the bears working on their sky armour and fills notebook after notebook, Lyra and Iorek walk out onto the snow until the palace is small enough to be pinched between her fingers. She flops down onto the snow, and he settles down beside her to lend his warmth just as they had done so many years ago. 

"You seem happy, Iorek." She declares, looking on at him. 

"Bears are happiest when they are living free lives. We are free to hunt, and live here. Free to work our sky-armour. There is nothing more we need now that the ice has returned and there is enough to eat." 

Lyra considers his words, and asks slowly, "Iorek, do bears ever miss people?"

There is a low grumble, and she disparages herself, thinking it's a silly question to ask Iorek, a king among subjects, who doesn't have a daemon who argues back or can be held close to his heart. Iorek, who doesn't understand human ties in the same way, because bears don't have _friends_ in the same way. 

"It is good to see you, child." He turns his head to tell her solemnly, and it warms her heart. She tips sideways to rest her weight against him and he rumbles again, "Tell me, who do you miss."

 _"A lot of people…"_ She wants to say, but knows that just the half of it. "Lee."

There's another gravelly rumble from under her back. 

"Lee was the only human I considered a friend. He was as brave as a bear." Iorek tells her, and she recognises the pride in his voice because she feels it too. "Lee's time came. No matter what I feel now, it will never change, it is better to honor the memory."

She lets Iorek walk ahead on the way back, stepping in his paw prints to save her energy. Pan climbs up her neck to nibble on her ear when she's lost in her thoughts, and then he slips into her fur lined hood, just like old times. 

"What do you make of that, Lyra? Did it help?" 

She finds it a bit annoying when he already knows the answer, because Will isn't dead, he's still living in his world, and when she huffs, Pan seems to already know what to say, "You made promises to each other."

"Pan, they were easy to make, they were words! What else were we supposed to do, let Dust fall out of worlds? Never!" She breathes out harshly into the cold air. "It's harder than I ever imagined. I'm only human, and it hurts my heart _every day_ when I wake up and remember that...I'm here and he's not, and I can't be where he is. What am I supposed to do with all my love for him?"

"You still promised." Pan's claws press against her throat, and she knows she'll live and die by her words, no matter the heartache, no matter the weight of her memories. "Anyway, you're not only human, you're a bear and a witch too...and whatever Dust made you."

xxx

In another world, far far away from Lyra's or Will's, Dust had been absent for millennia upon millennia. It was dark and cold, and entirely desolate. Life had not existed there in any sentient form for so long, the memories of the scents of flowers had been lost entirely.

It was as dead as a tomb until a small sprinkle of Dust found its way through. It followed an angel who had flown the furthest of them all. He swooped out through a window deep underground and pulled the two edges together to seal them shut. Dust stopped floating and falling away, and instead began to wind along an ancient and forgotten path, high in the skies above a canyon that had once been filled with the deepest, bluest water. It began to fall gently over the cracked, dry earth and where it landed, it coaxed out those long-forgotten instincts. 

The grass returned first; small and persistent, and eternally pleased to soak up the Dust that continued to fall. 

The angel remained there to tend to the garden, as angels did in days of old, and as all angels longed to do, before the Authority had bound them up in its control. It reaped the reward as the world bloomed, in a multitude of colours and forms, into a paradise fit for life again.

xxx

Mary speaks to Will soon after they return with an eagerness and her eyes fixed on the top of the fridge where her daemon sat, invisible to his eyes but not hers. ”It’s about seeing the things that are already there.” She tells him with the aim to encourage, and he takes the words to heart, more than he initially realises. 

As the years pass, he finds it's like learning to use a new sense or muscle, because it's not like it stops working when he's not using it. Or that he can use it in only one way. When he helps an old lady up onto the bus, his hands brush against her wrinkled skin and he can feel her old bones, hollowed out and arthritic. He feels it in the same way he manages to get a glimpse of her daemon, a stumpy looking badger climbing up beside her. 

When he sits on the bench to talk to Lyra the next Midsummer’s Day, the second thing he says to her is, "I'm applying for university, here in Oxford. I'm not going to leave the city, I've got mum to think about, and Mary too." 

Together they had been reviewing as much information and research about Dust as they could. Mary had even published a few articles anonymously, but enough interest had been piqued by small scientific communities. Each of them would fit into a wider pattern, a lattice of knowledge that could help to explain Dust to people. He listens, more often than not, and when he can, he'd relate a small piece of practical information about how it felt; to use the knife, what it was like to be separated from his soul, and to be reunited.

Kirjava butts up against his leg and it makes him smile. When she curls against his foot, he's brought back to the thought of _Lyra_. 

“I’m going to study medicine. It’s funny, it feels like I’m following in my father’s footsteps again, in a way..."Lyra, I've been learning something else too, and I keep trying, but I think it's like you learning to read the alethiometer again." 

Will looks down at Kirjava and feels his heart clench, and he still tries anyway. 

But he can’t _see_. He’s not practised enough or calm enough. Not when there was an electrifying rush in his blood just from returning to the bench, with the idea that she was _there_ , in her Oxford, on the other side of the looking-glass. 

He knows there’s a trick to it, just like feeling for a gap in the fabric of the universe and then splitting it apart. But the seeing would come with practise and although he knows they are worlds apart, it doesn’t feel as far away, not now. 

xxx

In an Oxford not too unlike Will's, the cars zip down the streets to the city centre and a group of girls cross the street in front of the far side of the botanical gardens, pushing and nudging each other as the chatter. They pass a row of black railings in front of the gardens on their way to the high street and they barely break their stride because there is nothing worth noticing about this unloved corner.

Some years ago, there had been a volunteer gardener who had deweeded the flowerbeds and planted fresh bulbs each winter, but when it became harder for him to get about, he had to give it up.

So everyone passes by, and no one spares a second glance at the bench under the willow tree at the far end of the gardens, at the unruly, overgrown grass that spills out onto the weed lined path and the moss-covered walls. 

Until one day they do. 

And sure it's unloved, and the city council want nothing to do with it because there are potholes to repair and a million other concerns to take care of before they can turn their attention to a forlorn patch of garden, but it's fixable. 

The girls start with the bench. They borrow an electric sander and use up a half-empty tin of outdoor wood varnish until it's almost new and glossy looking in the late afternoon spring sunshine. In the weeks that follow, they dig up the flowerbeds and do what they can for the time being, but by the turn of summer the garden truly comes to life, awash in flowers and greenery. 

On Midsummer's Day, the willow fronds sway in the humid air and the girls bring picnic blankets stuffed in their bags along with armfuls of snacks and fizzy drink cans. In the winter, when everything is dusted in snow, they bring their boyfriends and girlfriends to the bench. Hidden away under frosted evergreen leaves, they exchange nervous mistletoe kisses under fronds with fairy lights strung up in the lowest branches. 

Above them, Dust begins to fall more golden and heavier on the children and the adults in that little comer of Oxford, surrounding them in its gentle glow. 

xxx

"Will, I applied for the scholarship, and I've got it. I get to study the alethiometer. It's all I've ever wanted; it feels like I'm finally getting things done." 

It’s been years since she’s needed a pocketbook to hold her thoughts, and occasionally when she thinks back to it, she marvels at how her younger self had been unnerved by it. She sighs and tucks her hair behind her ears, leaning back far enough to swing her legs. It feels like rain in the air, and when she draws a breath there’s a metallic smell that makes her glad that she’s brought an umbrella along with her. The flowers around the bench face upwards, waiting for the raindrops to fall, but she had crossed her fingers on the walk over, hoping that it would hold out until the evening. 

"Dame Hannah's shown me where I'll be working- in an office, with my own desk and everything! Her daemon is a marmoset. I think I’ve already told you that- He's so clever and quick, you should have seen the way he was moving across the bookshelves and pointing out all the books I'm going to have to read." 

Lyra sighs a happy sigh and moves onto her big news, the news she had been waiting to share for the past two months. 

“I’m going North again. Serafina sent me a letter. Isn’t that a funny thing to imagine, a witch writing a letter with a pen and ink." She pauses to consider the mental image again and it makes her grin wide at nothing and no one in particular. "I'm leaving later this evening. It's going to be an adventure, just like the ones we had."

Lyra falls silent, and then plucks up enough courage to speak words she had been afraid to say aloud this time around They had been weighing on her, always, but there was something about them that begged to be set free. 

"I hope you're having adventures of your own. I hope they're marvellous and make your heart race, and you smile. I wonder if you'll be studying at a college in Oxford, or with Mary. Or if you're working. I tell myself that whatever you're doing...you're doing great things." 

"I wish I could know if you're happy." Lyra brushes her fingers at the corners of her eyes, feeling Pan’s gaze on her. "I wish that you knew I'm trying, I really am." 

She stays as long as she can, until the sun sets, and the night air made the hairs on her arms prick up. There is a rumble inside the darkening clouds above and it prompts her to stand. With a heavy sigh, she leaves the garden to pack quickly, and it feels as painful as ever to leave her heart behind. 

While the journey North takes her mind off things, Lyra finds herself missing Fiona Carero's company. The last time she reached Trollesund, she had been in the company of Gyptians, and this time when she approaches the Embassy it is alone, but she’s awaited. At the front doors, she is met by a witch's human son, and he takes her further north across the taiga on a sleigh pulled by giant grey and white dogs who are as eager to race through the snowy landscape as she is. When night falls on the third day, Pan nestles in amongst the blankets and they watch the aurora ripple slowly above them. 

"I think I saw a witch." 

Lyra whispers it and he tips his head far back so she can scritch at the soft fur behind his ears. 

"It was a cloud." 

"No, I think it was a witch." She drops her chin down over his back so he's lightly tucked under her chin. “Pan, why do you think she asked us to come?” 

“I don’t know Lyra, but you’re right.” He climbs out from under her chin and onto her shoulder, face turned up to the illuminated sky. “It’s an adventure.” 

When they finally arrive, Lake Enara is everything and nothing like she had imagined. All of her books and all of the reading undertaken at the Arctic Institute pales in comparison. 

Serafina greets her at the edge of the lake beside a fire built up her honour, as the clan queen’s invited guest. They sit and eat, and then as the dark velvet of night drapes over the lake and the surrounding woods, they take a walk between the oldest trees and Kaisa plods through the snow beside Pan to talk about the things daemons talked about.

Lyra's fur lined boots make the snow crunch, but Serafina's bare feet are silent as she explains how her sisters remain busy, and how some of those who had listened carefully to the words on the wind have learnt of a great work that needs to be completed and were flying across worlds to help the angels close all the tears. 

Her heart thumps louder than ever and she dares not even to breathe, but then Serafina goes on to explain how even witches need to return back to their homelands to recover from crossing through the worlds and it feels like a knife in somewhere small and soft that needs to be protected.

Instead of speaking, Lyra continues to walk beside the clan queen and listens to her talk about the few brave witches who have ventured further than ever before, and how the farewells between sisters are considered differently now, more permanent with the threat of being trapped in a world where the next gossamer tear that needed closing may require years of searching. 

Lyra comes to halt in the snow when she feels the guilt tighten in her stomach. "I wish I could fly like you. I could help to close the windows!" 

Serafina regards her with an odd look and takes her hand, "Tell me, my sister, how is your work?" 

"I'll be studying when I go back. There's books with all the knowledge of everyone who's ever learnt how to read the alethiometer, all of their notes and their attempts. It's lifetimes worth of work, they all grew old peering at the symbols and trying to work their way down the ladders." 

Lyra grows still, fighting off a shiver, "It makes me scared if I think about it for too long." 

"Why?" 

"Because they died without being able to read it the way I could. All that studying and learning, by professors and doctors, people all across the world. And then there's me. Just me, and I could do it better than all of them without reading a single page."

She frowns at the silhouettes of the trees around her, because that’s how she feels some days; a tree in the middle of the woods and just as deathly quiet. "And then I _forgot._ " 

"Let me show you something." Serafina tells her after a moment and leads her by the hand to the darkest part of the wood where the tree trunks were wider than any she'd seen before. 

It's still and quiet, yet beneath her feet Lyra knew that the world felt so alive.

They come to a stop in a small clearing and are greeted with a regal nod by an old witch with silver hair like moonlight, much older than Serafina. She moves slowly, like a dancer, and there are fine, faint wrinkles around her neck and hands, and at the corners of her eyes. Lyra doesn't stop the comparisons there as she notices Pan fixed stare on the witch's beetle daemon. Every other witch she had seen or read or heard about had a daemon in the form of a bird, a witch without a bird daemon wasn’t supposed to exist. 

“Hello,” Lyra says, and was waved over to sit down beside her. 

“This is Ilmatar Tuulisdottor, she is the oldest of my clan, and the wisest.” 

The old woman tips her head at Serafina and offers a grin before pointing to a pile of sticks encircled by stone. Lyra grins back, and Serafina helps them to build a fire. Once it’s done, Lyra jams her gloves back on, letting the flames warm her fingers up again until she can feel them properly. After, she reaches into her bag and pulls out a half-loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese.

“It’s a bit stale, but it should be fine toasted.” She tells them both and Ilmatar waves her on.

As Lyra crouches down, there is a soft murmuring behind her. She knows there are two sets of eyes on her back and glances at Pan who merely raises his head from where he’s curled up by the fire, dozing happily in the warmth thrown out. 

“They’re talking about you.” 

“Fun.” She quips back, and hastily pulls the first piece of toast out before it burns. 

They eat in comfortable silence, and she listens to the crackle of the fire. The smoke is light and drifts upwards slowly, reminding her of the days she could sit in the kitchens at Jordan by the giant fires and listen to the hubbub around her. It brings smile back to her face as she's enveloped in the peacefulness this quiet corner in the North holds. It feels so far from the horrors of Bolvanger or the wild tales her father brought back to her when she called him uncle and hung onto every word about the land he seemed to belong to. 

She had come to know it, after all. 

“Why are we here?” Lyra asks eventually while stooping to lift up another large log to toss onto the fire.

The two witches exchange a look, then Serafina stands and Ilmatar reaches into her small bag. She pulls out a curved piece of wood and pops it under her foot, bending it further to slip over a piece of string. Suddenly, Lyra recognises it as a bow and the wood gleams in the firelight. A strange urge passes over her, calling her to reach out and touch the wood, and it takes her a long, uneasy moment to realise it felt like how the alethiometer felt between her hands. 

Her hand falters, and she feels weak until Serafina speaks to her, a guiding hand on her arm helping her to stand straighter. 

“Ilmatar is unlike the rest of my sisters. She lost her cloud-pine branch many, many centuries ago, as a young girl. When her feet touched solid ground after her fall, her daemon settled to the form he is now, and her fate was sealed.” 

They both looked down at the beetle that had inched its way across the log so that it was bathed in the firelight. “She is skilled with reading the skies in a way no other witch is, and for that reason I have asked for her help.”

“To do what?” 

Serafina moves to stand behind Lyra, and places her hands on her shoulders, letting her tip back to look up at the sky. “Watch closely for no human before has ever seen this, and there are only a few living witches who observed this too.”

“Choose.” Ilmatar asks, speaking for the first time while drawing her bow back. 

Her wrinkled fingers brush up against the apple of her cheek and hold the tension in the string. Lyra barely breathes as she turns to the thickest parts of the trees above them and points. Then, like a silent ghost, Ilmatar nocks her arrow and moves her lips quietly. 

She says something Lyra can’t catch in a hurry of a whisper and then lets the arrow loose into the dark, clustered branches above. 

A flock of birds take to the air in a rush of cries and flapping wings in a moment of chaos and disturbance. It is deafening and shatters the silence Lyra had fallen into so easily. Suddenly she feels as if she's stepped into a different North, the witches' North, where there is more to see than what first meets the eye. It takes her breath away and not even the weight of Serafina's hands on her shoulders can ground her as she watches the last of the wings and feathers melt into the night sky. 

The old witch speaks when the trees fall silent again, and when she does Lyra takes her words to heart, and carries them through her life. 

“We have great need for truth speakers in this world, Lyra Silvertongue, and for one who has seen so much, you have a duty to share that knowledge so that the rest of us are able to learn to understand and love what you already know.” 

xxx

Dust waits for them each Midsummer's Day. 

Like a fisherman, it is patient. It casts its net wide and far, and here at the second centre of world, it falls gentle against the love that calls to it. 

Like the tide to the seashore, it rolls out to crash on distant shores, ever connected to the current that sent it there. 

Underneath the willow tree in Will's Oxford, there is a bench. A little further from the path, there is a small sapling of a tree that has grown from a leafy sprout to a young tree. Protected by the old willow from the gusts and the heat of summer, it inches upwards, unfurling its emerald green leaves and flowering each spring. Each petal stretches out, drinking up the sun and the breeze to capture the falling Dust until there is a small, hard seed pod hidden within the branches. 

They fall throughout the summer, each landing hard in the grass to be picked apart by the squirrels and birds. Some are taken home by children under the assumption they were collectable like acorns or conkers or pinecones. Where they land on concrete and crack, oil seeps out onto the grass and into the ground.

Then, in the deep auburn hues of autumn, laced with the last Dust-drenched leaf falls, the final seed pod of the first flowering drops. 

And rolls. 

And another path unfurls. 

And atoms from the start and the Fall, and the two loose ends are reunited; Dust calls to Dust in a silent and ever-ringing chime pulling the walls of the world closer together until they’re more aligned than ever, and it bridges the last gap

xxx

Kirjava sits beside Will and nuzzles her black cheek against Will’s palm. It's a muggy afternoon, heavy with the promise of a fast-moving thunderstorm bringing fresh, cool air and he tips his head back to watch the grey clouds push on. 

He feels a phantom breeze drift over his mind and closes his eyes, allowing it to sweep away his thoughts, gently tucking them back into place until the inside of his head felt like a lake at dawn, crystal clear and undisturbed. 

Then, and only then, does he open them, seeing beyond plain looking. 

.

In another Oxford, Lyra sits on the bench and toes at the dry dirt with Pan waiting patiently a little way off. They listen out for the bells to chime at midday, having watched the shadows grow short through the morning, and with the final chime ringing over the city, she speaks, “Will, I love you.”

. 

It feels like the world has dropped out from under him. 

Beside him, Kirjava leans against his thigh, claws digging into his skin with her surprise and elation but he has a firm grasp on his sight, and he looks across the divide and _sees_ her. 

.

Lyra shifts, leaning backwards and carries on. “Will...there’s something I want to try. Something Serafina taught me when I went North. She said that you would have been learning how to do this too, and that we might...one day be able to see each other.” 

Although she’s hidden the thrill of it in her voice, in the stillness of her hands resting on her lap, it’s not far from the surface and the hint of a smile curls around her lips and erupts into a self-conscious snort. 

“I was so cross with her for not telling me earlier. If she had told me when we’d left each other, or in any of her letters, I would have gone _straight_ there. I would have followed her in through any of those tears in the universes the witches have been trying to close. I would have even tried to steal a cloud-pine branch to fly and catch her-”

She twists her arm, reaching for Pan and his nose bumps against the soft skin of her palm, centring her again until she’s settled again. There is no futility in it, or any kind of resignation, and when she speaks again she seems transformed into sereneness. 

“She could tell. But we talked by the fireside until dawn, like the witches do, and Will, she looks the same and I felt like a child all over again.” Lyra whispers under her breath, hearing voices from beyond the bridge. “We talked and talked, and I realised she was right.”

When she sighs, it’s almost wistful, “If she had tried to teach me how to do this _then_... well, I wouldn’t have thought about anything else. I wouldn’t have slept, or eaten, or moved from here.”

Her smile returns, full of fondness and her eyes are golden in the afternoon sunshine. “I’ve been practising, Will. And I want to try.”

Settling her back against the bench, she quietens herself until the soft thump of her heart was the loudest thing around her and closes her eyes. 

.

“Lyra!” Will breathes in awe from his seat at the other end of the bench. 

. 

She turns to the sound of his voice, and he’s staring at her with a wonder that would never fade from her memory until her dying day. She thinks she could die there and then, that her heart might explode from pure joy of seeing him again. All the years that had passed since she last saw him had unfurled back, and the force of it had pinned her to the spot. 

Lyra could barely breathe, flicking her eyes away to look at the row of pansies growing on the edge of the garden to try and keep the stillness, the sight in her grip. 

“Look at him,” Pan whispers, nipping at her ear. “Don’t waste this time now, Lyra. Not with another whole year ahead of us.”

.

“Lyra! Lyra! I’m practising too.” Will tells her, quick to get the words across. “Mary’s teaching me. Sometimes I can see people’s daemons. I watch them walking down the street. And I’ll keep practising. I’ll practise every day. So that, one day, we can speak to each other again!” 

He blinks and then his eyes search for her, but the other side of the bench in his Oxford is empty once again.

.

When Lyra turns to look back at him, she sees his outstretched hand lying inches away from her own, and she edges her own closer. 

And yet, they were barely apart, she always knew that he was there. “Serafina said it’d take a lifetime. But I won’t give up, and I know you won’t either.” 

.

In the other Oxford, without thinking, without breathing, Will does the same, until the two of them are separated by millimetres and the gulf of entire worlds was just another impossible thing to conquer. 


End file.
